Django Reinhardt

Even the latter would be more than a stretch since the recently re-released The Name of this Band is Talking Heads is a far better live document in my opinion.

He actually said they make him smile. I think that might be viewed as marginally less offensive.

Yes that was a little naughty but I couldn't resist when you seemed to have your dander up, all indignant and righteous. Justifiably so I might add if you thought I was genuine. I might have kept it up if the game hadn't have been pending. Kept it a little more credible. Might have been fun.

Yes. Yes I am. I believe there should only be one team to qualify from all the so called minnow continents put together. Say the champions of Australasia would play of with their equivalents in Asia, Africa and let's say North and Central America. That way we could fill the World Cup with decent teams from the big footballing continents such as Europe and South America. Fair representation be damned I want to see teams full of players I can recognise from watching the Premier League on Sky Sports. I mean imagine if England didn't qualify? The whole World Cup would be a joke. Now excuse me I'm missing the mighty Brazil's summary dispatching of some minnow or other. Chelsea player isn't even playing for them, what's the point?

So what might I ask would be wrong with simply saying no when offered the dubious distinction?

There is an argument that those with astronomical numbers of caps for minnows such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt shouldn't really count alongside the more established footballing countries. Of course that thought could just be a product of my rather confused mind.

Futureheads - News & Tributes I really think these boys could be heading for greatness. Fairly fresh on the back of their much lauded debut comes a different but ultimately just as satisfying follow up. It's not as tight and in your face but arguably has even better tunes. Thursday is almost Beach Boysesque in it's creamy smoothness. I just love it. Those looking for a straightforward follow up to their spikey eponymous debut should give it a second and third listen however as it's not that immediate. Give yourself a chance to fall in love with it.

Scarface (1932) Amazing how modern and real this still seems, Paul Muni gives a masterful performance in the lead as the ill educated yet strangely charismatic bully boy. Being on a bit of a gangster kick I watched this on the back of Cagney's Public Enemy and I was struck by how different the two were despite being made only a year apart (Public Enemy coming out in '31). While Cagney's Public Enemy is a tough kid who likes to act big, Muni's Scarface is a nastier character altogether, nastier and more charming at the same time. I hightly recommend this to anyone who wants to see where cinema's obsession with gangsters really hit its stride. The damning indictment of gangsters at the start is laughable when you see how sympathetically they're portrayed. I like to think it was a knowing irony on the part of the great Howard Hawks. George Raft plays his best friend and right hand man and spot Boris Karloff as a rival boss.

Velvet Underground Live 1969 It's been a long while since I listened to this, I just caught the headers on usenet and a spark seemed to hit my brain. I remember listening to these tracks through a drug haze a few years back and wondering if they were really this amazing or whether my disposition toward them were more as a result of them coming through heavily drugged brain-ears. Of course a mixture of both, nothing ever sounds quite like it does through the haze but these sound incredibly vivid despite the slightly muffled production. Really the eight minute guitar workout of What Goes On has to be heard to be believed as intense as it is enjoyable. These songs sound both tight and loose at the same time like a chugging runaway train of guitars on a bouncy track rhythm section. Really I felt the same way revisiting the Band of Gypsies live album, actually come to think of it also Les Bains Douches. Perhaps after all this time I've finally exorcised my prejudice against live albums, or against a select few anyway. Maybe they're not just sloppy versions of their studio incarnates. Not all of them at least.

Kairo Undeniably creepy and depressing at times this was still largely rather dull and insisted on hammering home it's rather trite message though long before the end I'd ceased looking for any meaning beyond the rather fuzzy alienated life we life in this modern world of 56k modems and shapely black stains. It seemed rather pleased with itself though, oh yes it thought itself exceedingly clever right up to the point where it took on some kind of suicide holocaust with explosions and bodies as charred cinders. It had sadly lost me a good hour before then since there appeared to be little more than the idea that we all sit in our little rooms in front of our computers, alone and disconnected. Just like ghosts. I did like the parts with the ghosts though, in the taped up rooms and that one in the arcade that twisted and turned horribly. So then some good creepy ghosts and some ploddingly rubbish morality tale about the evils of the internet (though I prefer to think of it more as a symbol of modern life). Ringu with some rubbish fluff tacked on if you will. Seemed to really drag as well, I was amazed it was less than a couple hours long. I'd have guessed at least five.

There's nothing hypocritical about being for free speech, but not liking what someone says; Zathras has however forced the hand of a mod to remove someone's freedom of speech, so that's interesting. 109043[/snapback] Yes I think this is true but I go on (in a later post) to qualify that statement. What I mean to say is best surmised in how can you wish to die for freedom of speech and then want to censor somebody else. I think this is hypocritical. You most likely missed that. Not that I want to be seen propping up the bar long after last orders has been called. I suppose it's possible to support the right to free speech but not necessarily how that right is used but I think there is an element of hypocrisy about this. Or at least bad faith. I don't know perhaps this concept is too deep for my tiny paddles.

Mags it's not the asking for removal that is hypocritical, it is rather the saying you believe in freedom and then asking for censorship that is. Really changing the circumstances doesn't affect the issue. My issue anyway. But as I've said I'm in support of Zathras in his asking for the avatar to be be changed. If only because I believe the avatar has been chosen for shock value only and as such has achieved it's effect and can now be changed in the best interest of all concerned. I believe the avatar has been chosen conciously or unconciously to provoke this sort or reaction and is thus obviously detestable. However, we can't force every detestable idea however stupidly arrived at under the carpet or else internet forums would be a barren wasteland. I leave it ultimately to the conscience of the avatar holder.

I think you should. It's a foolish avatar and it's offended Zathras enough for him to post this thread. Perhaps you should explain what other than the pure controversy factor inspired you to choose such a set of images as your avatar. What is it saying to you? Why do you want yourself identified with it?

You really don't see any hypocrisy there? Perhaps I'm losing my powers of reason here but as much as we all respect your loss how can you wish to die for freedom of speech and then want to cenosr somebody else. If you don't see the inherent hypocrisy here either you or I are one goal short of a Boumsong defensive display.

No I don't wish to stir up controversy. Only to point out how foolish the first statement was made to look by the last. It's such a common rouse of course, I'm not racist but these towel heads are all whatever, or I'm a liberal free thinking guy but Hitler had some great ideas to eradicate unemployment. It wasn't the claim that I had an issue with it was simply the jarring contradiction of statements. No offense Zathras, I'm sure several of your close family died in those horrendous pictures we all saw.

How can you be "all for free speech" and then take offence when somebody says something that affects you personally? I'd say that makes you a hypocrite.

Beethoven Symphony No.3 "Eroica" - Otto Klemperer One of his, the very best symphonies I've ever heard. Interspaced between watching Sharapova glide around the court I'm afraid I've lost some the finer points I was going to make, about the symphony. Endless invention, this symphony has tunes coming out it's ears. It's hugely satisfying on almost every level. Written to commemorate Napolean's great revoltionary triumph. Beethoven is a master of the form and even with six to go this mastery was in full bloom here. If anyone asked you why Beethoven was a genius and you only had this in your hand you'd be well in luck since this piece evinces brilliance from every pore. I think it might be even better than Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. Ok, not better but you know I'm all excited and it's at least as good.

The new Morrissey album and I must say I'm a little disappointed. It's not a bad album, but it's so straightforward and trad rock that my searching ways are coming up empty. It's plain, it's even slightly boring. Of course it's contains the irrefutable Morrissey charm and that may be enough. For some. But still as a man who still remembers Vauxhall & I, I am ready to be overwhelmed. And I'm not. Of course approaching it tearfully after listening to a rather enchanting rendition of the Sibelius Violin Concerto isn't ideal but still I can't really recommend it. It's worse than You Are the Quarry and miles, miles away from his best (see Vauxhall and Arsenal). Edit: Oh I'm sorry the album is called Ringleader of the Tormentors.

Clearlake - Amber You can fuck right off with your crickets chirping. This is a top notch indie rock album, unheralded as usual. It's perhaps not a killer album with some filler in there but it carries quality all through it's runtime environment. Don't want to harp on but again these fellas seem to be criminally ignored by the mainstream musical media in this country. They're actually better appreciated in America such is our unwillingness to attach ourselves to anything that isn't the flavor (sic) of the month. New Morrissey in fucking deed. Top album. Oh and ignore pretentious publications who paint this as a pale reflection of their last effort. It's every bit as good believe me. Every bit as good.

You must then see Wim Wenders' Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire). A great film and an inspired central performance by Ganz. Really beautiful film. May require a slight arthouse leaning though.

Supergrass - Road to Rouen I love this album, it's such a grower. First couple of listens and you think nice record but nothing spectacular and then you realise after a few more that albums like this are worth a hundred of your trying oh so hard to impress the grown ups records. The shallow, overhyped products of our instant gratification culture. Not that Road to Rouen is a tough listen, a hard sell. Far from it. It just feels more organic, more like it's evolved from some kind of creative process. From people who don't feel they have anything to prove or shock, who just write the songs as they come out. It seems ironic that the band who were once the epitome of youthful exuberance have come full circle with a thoughtful almost trad rock album, at least in some ways. Don't neglect one of the very best bands of the last ten years people just to get your weekly fix of the latest tat. I'm aware that paragraph can be summed up by the phrase: young 'uns today eh?

@Asprilla's fireside Lies, they were never the triple A solid gold classics the aforementioned Manilow nuggets were. Having said that I'd be very interested to know how the two sets match up in terms of the amount of Karaoke "performances". Perhaps with Mandy added in alongside the others. See I can keep reeling off Manilow classics, there's no end to them. Let's see you do the same for Streisand. I bet you had to look those two up anyway so eager were you disprove my point. I'm sure they were both duets anyway, at least one was I'm sure. @Meenzer Definitely more apt I think. Though perhaps Abba would be even more suitable.

And that sir is supposed to be a recommendation? I mean if you'd have said Manilow perhaps but Streisand? Where's her Copacabana, where's her Could it be Magic? Ok the nose but what exactly does this have to do with Newcastle's current management situation?

I wouldn't be caught dead listening to such sentimental populist trash so it can't be that. Maybe it was sneaked onto the recent pressings of Hooked on Classics. James Last's moustache always struck me as potentially mind altering.

I picked Martin O'Neil but I don't recall my justification. Have I been a victim of press manipulation? Or is it O'Neil's insidious cult of personality at work? Edit: I also managed to spell his name wrong which furthers the haziness, I can't spell his name, don't recall him winning anything of note, haven't heard his name mentioned in isolation to his wife's health concerns recently and yet I can still pick him out at ten paces alongside a list of some top quality managers. This is spooky. Wait there, he is Irish and pasty faced isn't he?